It's Time
by AlinaLotus
Summary: Well, he thinks, if this is boring and mundane and lawful, then this is the best sort of life he- or anybody else- could've hoped for. Weddings, mother-in-laws, and life after being a Time Lord.


_I'm just the same as I was_

_Now don't you understand_

_That I'm never changing who I am..._

She passes him the little gun- not a gamma gun or a Sontaran weapon, not even a modified Sonic Screwdriver- a harmless little thing that inputs bar codes and logs them into a computer somewhere in a sure-to-be massive database, along with thousands of other registries.

"What, a bread machine?" He turns to her- to his Rose- and she raises an eyebrow.

"Of course." She says as though it's a silly question- which he supposes it is.

"Why, exactly?"

Rose smiles and rolls her eyes. "For making bread, of course."

"It seems very...mundane." He notes, scanning the bar code anyway.

Rose looks at him in that way she sometimes does, a mixture of worry, fear (he would recognize fear in her eyes even if they were closed), and a bit of defiance (it was, of course, Rose Tyler he was looking at). When he says things like that- _boring, mundane, lawful _- she always turns those eyes on him.

In the beginning, on the beach, he'd been the concerned one, because what could she possibly see in a human? She'd fallen in love with a Time Lord, after all. A human man, one heart, no TARDIS? Honestly, what could he offer her? But now it was she, he thought, who always wondered whether this life, this life of jobs, of paying a mortgage, of planning a wedding that Jackie was hell-bent on, would not be enough.

And how could it? He wasn't lying- boring and mundane were perfect ways to describe this human existence.

"Doctor," and then of course, she would go and do _that._ Slide her hand into his, bring him right back to the reason he'd so wanted this life in the first place. He was her Doctor, with all the same memories, the same wants, the same love, but now he had something to offer her that a Time Lord never could- mortality.

From the moment they'd met in the shop all those years ago- or eons, it rather seemed like- he'd been in love with her. Wouldn't admit it, at least not out loud, until it was almost too late, but they'd been tied together forever, and he'd been granted this gift, this special, priceless chance to show her, every day, how much he loved her. It was something that he'd begged the Universe for almost every second that they'd been apart.

"Well," he says, glancing at the rows above the appliances, "we could always spice it up. Allons-y!" He reaches for the gun and scans the code for a jar of crushed jalapeno peppers.

**oooo**

"Always said he was a nutter anyway," Jackie says to her, while Rose unpacks the bags of groceries into the fridge.

"Mum, not now." Rose sighs, putting the washing up liquid next to the sink and crumpling up the paper sack.

"Well of course you'll not want to hear it again, but is he really right for you? I mean, alright, he's not some alien thing anymore-"

"I'll take that as a compliment." The Doctor, her Doctor, is there, glasses in place, hair a perfect mess, suit blue pinstripes.

He really is everything she'd wanted- all the dreams, all the laughs, all the strong embraces and desires to help anybody and everybody. And the best part of it all was that he could give her what she'd always secretly wished for from the Doctor- growing old together and grandkids running through the house, prints of little hands and toes in the patio cement near the tire swing.

"You know what I mean." Jackie shrugs. "Rose won't say it, but we're all hoping you don't do a runner before the champagne."

His gaze moves from his soon-to-be mother-in-law to Rose, her eyes on the bag of crisps in her hand. She runs her thumb over the label but doesn't say anything, even when he crosses the room to her and takes the bag out of her hands.

"Rose, my Rose..." He murmurs, taking a piece of her hair between his index finger and thumb. How many times had he wished for this sensation? Silky locks within reach, the contentment and relaxation that crossed her face when he'd softly play with the golden strands.

Jackie opens her mouth to say something, hands on her hips, but Pete ushers her out of the room, offering the Doctor a wink before the back door snaps shut behind him and his wife.

"I don't really, you know." She quietly says, at last looking up at him. When their eyes meet, hazel melting into brown, Rose's breath nearly catches at the back of her throat.

"You don't hope I won't dash off before the toasts? Well, thanks." He smiles and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

She shoves him away, laughing, then pulls him back by the lapels of his suit, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him.

**oooo**

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't often fantasized about this as well. Rose walking toward him down an aisle strewn with blue Iris petals- it'd been nearly a fight to death between her and Jackie because Jackie wanted roses, and Rose said the only thing worse than roses at a wedding was being called Rose at a wedding.

So she's walking toward him, almost lovelier than he's ever seen her, (because nothing will beat that moment when he turned from Donna, and there she was- _there Rose was, in the flesh, running toward him_) and Pete is crying and Jackie is crying and he can't help it- he's crying, too.

**oooo**

Past the dinner of delicate prawns in butter, and seasoned scampi, and tiny vegetables, of wines red and white, and yes, the champagne toasts. Rose whispers that she wishes Jack and Donna and Mickey could be here, and he squeezes her hand in agreement. Her wedding ring gleams in the spot lights pouring from the ceiling, and a rush of contentment spreads through him at seeing the physical reminder that she's promised him everything he's always wanted to give her.

He hands a wad of bills towards the limo driver, and eagerly enters the marble lobby of the hotel, Rose already at the check-in counter.

It won't be the first time- or even near it- that they've been together like this, sheets around their naked bodies, heat and skin pressed together, kisses long and passionate. But now they're not just _the doctor and Rose_, they are Mr. and Mrs. and though Jackie wouldn't mind Rose telling everybody her husband is a doctor, she did, in the end, make him put a proper name on the marriage certificate, so now they are the Smiths, and who knew that these things, these very human, very typical things, could bring him so much contentment?

Rose dims the lights, her nude silhouette coming towards him.

**oooo**

He wakes early the next day, Rose still buried beneath the blankets and pillows, and he dresses quickly, setting out to find the only suitable thing he can think of for their first meal as husband and wife. The wedding dinner didn't count, in his opinion. It was all Jackie and _her_ wants, and it was just easier on the lot of them to let her have her way. But now it's just the two of them- like it used to be, when they'd traverse universes and centuries together.

Maybe they'd never save lives, again, or meet long-deceased kings or their mistresses, never face Satan and suns that, in their expansion, wipe Earth from existence, but they'd face each day together now, bound by their promises and by their love, and this, he thinks, is what makes boring and mundane so enticing, so desirable.

He sees a sign up ahead, and with a smile disappears through the shop doors.

**oooo**

The bathroom door is half shut, the shower running, when he returns. He hurriedly pulls out the table and chairs that are against the wall, sets out plates and is uncapping bottles when Rose steps out, her hair wet and a terry bathrobe pulled tight around her.

"There you are," She says with a brilliant smile, the one that physically hurts to be away from. There is an excitement that runs through him at the thought that he'll never have to miss it again.

"In the flesh" he says, then steps aside, revealing the spread on the table. "Bon apetit."

"Paper plates and lager?" Rose sits in the chair he pulls out for her. "Romantic, Doctor." But her eyes are shining and as he pulls a cardboard tray out of one of his bags, they fill with tears.

"Chips?" She says, laughing through her tears.

"Our first date, do you remember?" He reaches over to gently cup her cheek, wiping away the tears with his thumb.

"Every day; every second." She replies, covering his hand with hers.

**oooo**

She still worries, but it's not like she used to. He's her Doctor, and always has been- always will be. He has the same sort of smile, punctuated with moments of arrogance, but still kind. His brown eyes still hold the pain and knowledge of his departed race, and more than once she's caught him gazing at the night sky with a wistful expression, and she knows he's wondering just where and when his beloved TARDIS is.

Two weeks after the honeymoon she throws up Jackie's tuna casserole- with a sympathetic expression from both her husband and father- but her mother looks knowingly at her, her hands resting on her own eight-month pregnant belly.

As Pete scrubs cream of mushroom soup and egg noodles from the carpet, the Doctor wipes a cool cloth across Rose's forehead. They've not said anything, but he always was too quick on the uptake, and anyway, it'd been years since she hadn't kept down her mother's cooking.

She clenches the edge of the bathtub with both hands. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, not this soon, not before she'd had a chance to really convince him to stay with her. And now...would this, would impending fatherhood, be the final straw? Would this drive him away, where a wedding and overbearing mother-in-law didn't?

"I always wished," he begins, brushing the hair away from her face, "for a child that had your smile."

She quickly looks up at him, searching his eyes, hoping against hope she isn't mistaken, that he wants this as badly as she does. "What if it has yours? I'd like that better."

"Jack Mickey for a boy. Donna Harriet for a girl." He decides, that same look on his face as when he's searching the stars at night.

"The Smiths." She says, placing his palm against her stomach. And this, she thinks, is what it really is all about- everything she'd ever done, everything he'd ever been through, all of it, had brought them to this very place and this very time, and they were here, together, and would be for as long as they lived.

**oooo**

She passes him the little gun- not a gamma gun or a Sontaran weapon, not even a modified Sonic Screwdriver- a harmless little thing that inputs barcodes and logs them into a computer somewhere in a sure-to-be massive database, along with thousands of other registries.

"What, a diaper pail?" He turns to her- to his Rose- and she raises an eyebrow.

"Of course." She says this as though it's a silly quesiton- which he supposes it is.

"Why, exactly?"

She narrows her eyes, and shoves the gun into his hand. "Think you're being funny? Well you're not, now scan the damn thing and let's move on. I've got to get off my feet- lest you forget, you knocked me up and now I'm a whale." But her hands lovingly circle her swollen belly.

Pete looks over at him with a "this too shall pass" expression, and he thinks that if this, all of it- of Rose and her hormonal mood swings (which can make for a very cold or very hot night- or a very cold or very hot five minutes), of stocking up on nappies and bibs and even that horrifying device Rose referred to as a 'breast pump', of seeing the house they'd bought transform into a home as Rose put her own stamp on it, well, if this is boring and mundane and lawful, then this is the best sort of life he- or anybody else- could've hoped for.

All those centuries, so alone, so dejected and so sad, all gone, all washed away by the beating of Rose's heart- and now, by the beating of the smaller heart growing inside of her.

"Doctor! Day dreaming again, well that's typical, ain't it? Rose is carrying not just your child but every other thing in the store, by the looks of it, and here you are, can't even help your own wife- or mother-in-law!" Jackie is behind him, carrying Rose's little brother, who is asleep in his mother's arms.

He quickens his pace to catch up with Rose (whose arms and cart are mostly empty, despite what Jackie thinks) and gives her a sideways smile. "Shall we, Mrs. Smith? Allons-y!" And he pushes the cart into a cashier's line.

**oooo**

**Lyrics used from It's Time by Imagine Dragons. **


End file.
